Find Shelter

Plain; 2006

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The term "freak-folk"-- coined by this very website-- has, perhaps not surprisingly, become almost universally disliked, particularly by those artists to whom it has been applied. Yet no matter what description one uses to help classify the various forms of contemporary avant-folk, there's little question that the Bay Area's Noah Georgeson should be considered one of the genre's chief architects. In the past few years, Georgeson has produced such notable works as Joanna Newsom's The Milk-Eyed Mender and Vetiver's To Find Me Gone, played alongside Devendra Banhart and recorded his Cripple Crow album, and produced Bert Jansch's recent Drag City release The Black Swan. In the wake of all this activity now appears Georgeson's solo debut Find Shelter, a strange and unassuming album whose lush, brooding surfaces bear surprisingly little comparison to his previous production work.

As a young musician and composer, Georgeson counted his Nevada City neighbor Terry Riley as one of his earliest listeners, and with Riley's recommendation he entered the Master's program at Mills College. While pursuing his degree he studied under such artists as Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Curran, and Fred Frith. Georgeson wrote, arranged and recorded the songs that would eventually take shape on Find Shelter between 1999 and 2003, penning most of it while living with Newsom as she was writing the bulk of Milk-Eyed Mender.

Predictably, given this background, Find Shelter sounds simply marvelous from a production standpoint, its gentle surges of mellotron and acoustic guitar perfectly balanced with Georgeson's elegant orchestrations. With its cinematic atmospheres and idiosyncratic song structures, the album shares little or nothing in common with the reverent folk-rock formalism of Banhart or Jansch. Instead, Find Shelter makes its company alongside the work of other in-studio eccentrics like producer Jack Nitzsche or Lee Hazlewood. The resemblance to Hazlewood is especially acute in regards to Georgeson's quavering Western vocal style, the limitations of which can also vaguely bring to mind a hungover Beck.

Due in part to Georgeson's narrow vocal range, there are points on Find Shelter when he sounds to be almost audibly withdrawing from the spotlight, as on the gracefully constructed "Glorious Glory" where he appears eager to camouflage his vocal beneath as many verdant layers of strings and woodwinds as possible. Likewise, such tracks as "Wooden Empire" obscure his skillful flamenco guitar lines with blanketed drones, leaving many of these songs with an indistinct line of vision, and many of his stately melodies stranded just tantalizingly out of reach.

This overriding sense of ambiguity is further heightened by Georgeson's largely inscrutable lyrics. "Sharpen two needles/ That puncture jungles/ Grow cathedrals," he sings on "Priests of Cholera" as the music swells with hidden drama and majesty, his voice buried just far enough in the mix to frustrate further attempts to apprehend his narrative intent. Although Find Shelter contains several passages of undeniable chamber-pop beauty--most notably (and perhaps not coincidentally) on brief instrumental tracks like the opening "Tied to the Mountains" or "Shawm Overture"-- at album's end Georgeson himself remains an elusive figure, sounding perfectly content to remain behind-the-scenes even on his own record. Particularly when taken in contrast with such forceful and distinctive musical personalities as Banhart and Newsom, one has to wonder if Georgeson might simply be better served working more closely with another musical foil, perhaps someone able to add either a little more folk or a lot more freak.